


Exiled for Greatness

by kepic



Category: Path of Exile (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Magic, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Undeath
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:06:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29432154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kepic/pseuds/kepic
Summary: Rufus Lucianus is a thaumaturgist, an accomplished physician, a necromancer, and more than anything, a researcher. When his experiments finally become impossible to ignore, the Templars exile him to Wraeclast. Dominus and Piety are in for a surprise when someone at least as knowledgeable and skilled as they show up. Rufus is not happy about what they did to him.





	1. Welcome to the continent

## Welcome to the continent

### The Twilight Strand

Coming to consciousness after being nearly drowned wasn't a pleasant experience. I dragged myself out of the water, further to the shore. I remembered being on a ship, on my way to exile for my so-called crimes. Either I was thrown overboard or something happened to the ship. I didn't care much - the ship and its crew were welcome to whatever fate had fallen on them.

After getting my bearings, at least a little, I saw a man lying on the shore, waves beating against him. He was barely conscious, although getting more so as I walked to him. As I got closer I saw that a broken branch from a driftwood log went all the way through his upper abdomen. It was a wound that would kill him without some sort of regenerative magic. He was nearly naked, dressed only in some shorts and nothing else.

"Bastards dumped near two dozen of us off that ship. You and me, we're all that survived the swim. Never was much difference between Exile and the death sentence," he said. "Once I catch my breath here we'll take a look around. See what Wraeclast has on offer. Thought I saw smoke at those ruins up the beach. Could be worth checking if there's-"

One of the corpses nearby, at least I had supposed it was one, got up and attacked the man. He was too weak to fight against the undead and soon succumbed in the face of the assault. I saw my chance as the hungry dead mauled the now-dead exile, and jumped on the reanimated corpse's back and broke its neck. Even after this the undead still twitched, but it seemed the body didn't listen the orders it got from the rotting brain without an actual connection between the two. 

Going through the undead's pockets netted me a skill gem. With closer inspection it seemed to be for a _fireball_. A good enough beginning, although not what I was used to working with. I didn't much care for the direct application of spells, preferring to have minions between me and my enemies. 

It was sort of ironic, really. I had always intended to visit continental Wraeclast. It was obvious to an educated mind that the source of thaumaturgy had to be here, for it was far more effective on the continent. The Vaal and Sarn's Gemling Empire had been there, and though both seemed to have fallen to runaway thaumaturgy, they had also achieved many wonders. 

My studies and learning had finally caught the interest of the Templars, and not in a good way. That, too, was sort of ironic, for the leadership of the Templars, especially Dominus and his hand puppet Piety, were rather talented thaumaturgists themselves. Yet they still condemned me to exile for the same deeds. 

I was arguably the most ethical of us, and they dared claim my experiments were abominations. At least my subjects lived, and most of my work was reversible by design. They burned through slaves like they were mere kindling for the pyre. While I had to occasionally use slaves for my work, mostly I worked with the terminally ill and those otherwise participating of their own free will. Some even kept the modifications I made to them, if the results weren't too obvious. 

That was my downfall. In retrospect, I should have reversed my work without exception, barring the actual healing we agreed to. When one of my subjects, one I had compensated with money, had second thoughts about the modifications made to his body the bastard went to the Templars. The fact that the wretch burned on the stake for his unnatural state was no consolation when I was stripped of my status, my wealth, and my freedom. 

Scavenging around netted me a basic wand, crudely made of driftwood. At least it had a socket for the gem. It was pretty much the only thing going for it. I shot a few bolts, trying it out, and cast a _fireball_ at nearby surprisingly intact barrels. As luck would have it, the barrels had a few scrolls in them that the blast didn't harm significantly. While I doubted the portals would take me back to Oriath, they might be useful later when I could anchor them to a settlement. 

My experimentation with the wand and the gem brought me some unwanted attention. I saw shapes coming my way, and the taste in the air reeked of thaumaturgy, even more than what seemed to be a normal background stench here. Undead, then, or something heavily imbued with the fell power. While I didn't especially have anything against either, unshackled undead were a problem. Later, when I found the right gems, I would utilize undead myself. 

When they came closer I saw that they were similar drowned dead like the one who had killed the other exile. Shrugging, I dispatched them with wand and fireball, grimacing as I noticed that the scouring rituals by the Templars had seriously reverted my progress with employing my reserves of mana, and weakened my ability to channel power to gems. I'd have to start building my strength up from nearly zero again. 

The _fireball_ spell was essentially a remote explosion. The results on humans and other humanoids were grotesque. They were dismembered, burned, opened up so viscera flowed out. This was something that might have disturbed people greatly, yet I had seen far worse during my experiments. The thaumaturgic energy reanimated these bodies but didn't restore their intelligence or mutate them in any significant way. It was crude, but what else could one expect from thaumaturgy without intelligence to guide it? 

Luckily the magical flasks of regeneration and rejuvenation, colloquially called life and mana flasks, were common enough that I found a pair of them on the dead. While they certainly didn't stack up to having my own nearly inexhaustible reserves they would keep me alive until I had gathered my strength. 

Going forward I found sand spitters in addition to ubiquitous drowned dead. It was apparent that being exiled was hardly better than death sentence, especially considering the final fate of the remains here. At least it was likely that these dead, like most undead, were soulless husks. Being trapped in dead flesh you couldn't control would have been an unpleasant experience, something I was glad I didn't have to experience. Facing final death would have been a relief after that. 

The drowned and the spitters were easy enough to dispatch, and some of them had rather nice souvenirs left from their previous life. Lifesprig was especially welcome addition to my growing arsenal, especially the life regeneration effect it provided. 

Despite using prodigious amounts of wisdom scrolls I hadn't bothered to work out how they worked. My running theory was that somehow the stored magical energy accessed the collective knowledge of the species to pull enough information to recognize whatever was needed. In the end the actual workings of the scrolls wasn't of much interest to me, but they were very useful. Otherwise I might not have had the guts to use the wand at all. Using magical items without identifying them was a bad idea. I had seen enough gruesome results of such attempts. 

Finding other equipment made me feel much better. I had an armor, few weapons, even some money. In the distance I could see buildings, the ruins the other exile had spoken of. Heading that way I soon saw a giant of a man, with a large sword sticking out of his chest, a pretty solid piece of evidence of his undead status. Even from the distance I could see that the sword was of masterful craftsmanship, and probably very magical. 

I crept closer, trying to stay in the shadows and silent. Sadly his rebirth as an undead monster seemed to have given the giant supernatural senses. The instant I got close enough to use my ranged attacks on him, the bastard turned to look at me and performed a mighty leap accompanied by a powerful swing. I manage to dodge, though, and countered with a _fireball_. 

Sadly the attack seemed to affect him very little, even if I could see that I had managed to damage him. My dexterity and his brute strength might have led to an extended bout, but after damaging the zombie for a while I saw him pull the sword out of his chest. He seemed to have some crude idea how to use it, even in his undead state. 

What followed was a deadly game of cat-and-mouse in which I was forced to use life flasks to regenerate from the hits I suffered before managing to gain distance, and his much larger health pool giving me trouble bringing him down. It wasn't a pleasant feeling to be cut or pierced with a sword, even if I regenerated shortly after.

I had, of course, experienced many forms of pain before. My subjects became quite belligerent sometimes, occasionally escaping their bonds. Few times they even surprised me when my back was turned. Then there were the enhancements I had done on myself, each painful in their own way before I got used to them and they stabilized. 

The extended fight did allow me to study the giant. Just like the prodigious use of wisdom scrolls allowed me to identify skill gems without actually using a scroll, the lingering effect allowed me to identify various monsters. Hillock was one of them. If my guess about the origin of the scroll's ability to identify things was correct, this meant that enough people had gone against this monster that the information was available. Since the giant was still here, and they were not, the fate of the people was most likely unpleasant. 

Hillock was dressed in the remains of what I assumed were blacksmith's leathers that worked just fine as improvised armor. He seemed to be naked beyond that and some bracers. His size seemed at least partly natural. I didn't recognize any telltale signs of thaumaturgic modification on him, even if he smelled of the foul magic like nothing I had faced yet.

Summoning more zombies seemed to be one of Hillock's abilities in addition to his surprisingly good mastery of the sword. Still, he was relatively simple-minded, and the zombies weren't much of a threat. It was only a matter of time before the giant fell. His regeneration wasn't all that great, he didn't seem to use flasks, and it was easy enough to keep the distance after getting used to his patterns.

I looted the body, admiring the sword that the giant had pulled out of his chest in the middle of the battle. One scroll of wisdom later I identified it as Oni-Goroshi. In addition to having six linked slots it improved the skill of the user. The price would be some fire damage, but I would definitely be using this later. 

"I'm finally free! You, you did this! Anything is better than being stuck in that. His desires fell far short of mine, simple as though they are. But here you are. One with ambition and drive. So use me. This dying world is but kindling, yet its un-quickened blood may boil once again," the sword spoke. Then, after a pause, it continued longingly: "You know, a real bath would be wondrous." 

I sighed. Sentient items were very annoying. I put the sword away, for now, since I didn't actually need all the slots the sword had. Sentience granted on items was one of the most extreme applications of thaumaturgy, essentially binding a living soul to it and modifying the resulting consciousness to fit the item's purpose. 

Thaumaturgy's relationship to various civilizations that rose on Wraeclast and near it was quite conflicted. While the more extreme uses of the magic were restricted, often for a good reason, the more mundane aspects were in everyday use. Most of the magic people used was at least partly based on it. Flasks were just one example of it, and rather an obvious one if one thought of it. How could the flasks fill with the deaths of one's enemies if not for thaumaturgy? 

It was true, of course, that back in Oriath the flasks were filled from various fountains and such, but even those worked on thaumaturgic principles. I didn't know of any other way to fill the flasks, and I was an accomplished thaumaturgist and magical researcher. 

The giant undead had wandered around the gate to the settlement. I headed towards it, and soon was let inside the fortifications. The few guards looking over the strand I came from seemed to be glad, and somewhat in awe, that Hillock was dead. 

Everything seemed to be made of driftwood and stone. After the gate there was a small clearing with sharpened logs sticking out of the sand on one side. On them were dozens if not hundreds pieces of paper, each a listing of crimes and the sentence of being sent here to the continent. I spent good twenty minutes trying to look for mine but apparently that one wasn't here. 

There were stairs leading up to the settlement proper. On the way I found a waypoint that I activated easily enough. Deeming the settlement safe I also bound my portal scrolls to the place. 

The settlement was a busy thing. Lots of other exiles, and some that might not have been criminals. The name of the place was Lioneye's Watch, and it was an old fort. Lioneye had defended the place against the Karui during the Purity Rebellion. That was about all I knew of the place. I certainly had never thought about visiting. 

There seemed to be some important people here. Nessa dealt in magic and Tarkleigh in weapons. The latter seemed to also be a leader of sorts for the settlement, or as he liked to fashion himself, 'the father of the brood, just like Nessa is the mother'. Anyone with half a brain could see that he fancied Nessa, although neither of them seemed to acknowledge the fact. 

There was also a fellow called Bestel who claimed to be a captain of some sunken ship. He was mostly an annoyance, but seemed to have a way with words, and more importantly, some information and tasks for me to do for what he promised were decent enough rewards. 

"The name’s Bestel, captain of the good ship _Merry Gull_. Alas, my _Merry Gull_ is gone. My crew is gone. But my wits remain… after a fashion," the sailor had introduced himself. 

"Indeed? And what happened to the ship?" The ship was more interesting than the crew. I had a pretty good idea what happened to them. 

"There's an island, a short wade offshore of the terraces down the Coast. That's where my _Merry Gull_ ran ashore. Bloody wicked storm, that was, nothing anyone could have done about it." 

"Anything interesting there?" 

"Well, I heard that Nessa's in need of some medicine, and _Merry Gull_ 's medicine chest might just be back there still, at least somewhat intact. Watched the locals spit-roast our ship's doctor as I fled from the ship. Old 'Shaky Hands' was a terrible surgeon, but he knew his apothecary. Might be what explained them hands, too." 

This was good news. Even if the medicine chest wouldn't contain anything of particular interest to me, it would be valuable to the locals. A reward would be likely for returning it, and the goodwill wouldn't be a bad thing either. I was fairly sure that I could handle whatever I would face on the coast, but a safe haven would be necessary regardless. 

"Anything you can tell me about reaching the island?" 

"It's called Tidal Island for a reason. Easiest to reach on a low tide, you need just wade over. Otherwise you'll be needing a boat, and there's mighty lack of those around these parts." 

I nodded. "Well, this will be something I can probably do. I'll fetch the chest for you. While I'm heading over there, would you happen to know anything else worth doing?" 

Bestel scratched his head, tilting his tricorne a bit, then shrugged. "Can't say that I know. Might want to ask Nessa or Tarkleigh, those two be burdened with many things lately." 

I said my farewells to Bestel and headed to where Nessa was standing. She was a barefooted waif of a maiden, golden-haired and almost decently dressed. I certainly understood why so many seemed to be enamored with her, even without her sweet character. She wasn't one of the exiled, merely an unlucky child who had lost her parents in a shipwreck. 

"Hi, Nessa. Bestel told me you'd like some drugs. I'm heading over to Tidal Island to see if the ship's medicine chest is still there. Is there something else I could do while heading that way?" 

"No, I don't think so, Exile."

"I have a name, you know," I said to her.

"I'm sorry, you can't expect me to remember everyone's names. There are just so many of you lately," she answered.

I grunted and wandered towards Tarkleigh. He was a partially-dressed, something that seemed to be common around here, even lacking one boot. He lacked one of his eyes, as well, or just covered one for some unfathomable reason. Besides his eye, Tarkleigh seemed to be fit enough, and with his sparkling eye and dark hair, was almost as pretty as Nessa. Like Nessa, he wasn't an exile, but had stayed to help them. Us.

"Hey, would you have something for me to do on my way to Tidal Island? I promised to look for the ship's medicine chest, but I could do something on the way there," I said to him when he was free.

"Oh, hi. You're... Rufus, right? But no, I don't think I have anything before Tidal Island. Once you get past it, though, there are some things you can do for us in the Mud Flats."

"Thanks. I'll be back with the chest."

"Oh, before you go. You deserve a reward for getting rid of Hillock. Here, I think this would be useful to you, and I don't see too many others using it," Tarkleigh said and handed me a skill gem.

I glanced at it and froze. It had taken me months to get _raise zombie_ in Theopolis, and here it was, being handed out like any other skill gem. I took the gem and carefully slotted it into Lifesprig. "Thank you."

I squared my shoulders and headed to the coast.


	2. A grinding start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Coast. Quite a few things revealed and explained. Some actually difficult combat.

## A grinding start

### The Coast

Stepping outside the walls of Lioneye's Watch was slightly unnerving despite my certainty that I'd do what I had claimed. The coast was desolate, full of driftwood, weeds, and corpses. Not just human corpses, which there were at least a dozen visible from where I stood. Birds, crabs, any kind of animal or critter that could possibly have belonged on a coast was there, dead.

Seconds later the feeling passed, and I saw that while my initial impression was accurate, there were far fewer bodies than I had thought. My expectations had colored my senses. Wraeclast was a mess of wild thaumaturgy, but even here some laws of nature applied. One of them was that the natives knew how to survive.

I squared my shoulders, checked my wand, and set to walking down the coastline. I'd be wandering about a little. The other exiles knew to tell me that there were critters and undead here that would be a challenge. I needed a challenge. My existence on the continent would be full of combat, and for that I needed to reclaim my edge.

Most of the exiles were young, or just about nearing middle age. It would be the first time for them to pick up the tools of war, to learn to think on their feet, and to find it in them to kill. Humans weren't too good at hurting anything. Violence was learned. Even with the casual violence that was the norm in Oriath most people themselves couldn't fathom murder.

That wasn't the case with me. I was a mature man, and experienced in combat. I had to be. It wasn't always easy work, looking for the limits of thaumaturgy, and then trying to push past them. Sometimes experiments didn't end in success and the subject became unstable. Special critters and materials needed to be harvested or acquired so that the Templars wouldn't notice. I probably had all the skills I'd need in Wraeclast.

The brand just prevented full access to my abilities. It could be broken, though, and for that I needed to do what I knew I could do. In a way it would be like learning to write again after having a seizure, something I had seen in my patients. The knowledge was there but the connections needed to be rebuilt.

I had walked perhaps two hundred meters when the first assault came. Instead of undead my first opponents were crabs. These weren't the kind I had eaten back in Oriath. These were almost as big as I, and were obviously predators eyeing me for lunch.

Now, here's something fairly off about magic, and thaumaturgy especially. After killing some crabs, I used _raise zombie_. You'd think I'd get zombie crabs, right? Wrong. Whatever is making thaumaturgy work is anthropocentric. No matter what remains I cast _raise zombie_ at, the result was always human zombies.

The end result was effective. The three zombies and I dispatched the rest of the crabs with ease. I wandered around the coast, occasionally assisting my zombies with a _fireball_ or two. Cannibals, withered husks, and gravel eaters were met further inland, although they didn't exactly avoid the water. Sometimes several different kinds attacked at once. Their capacity to work together against me was baffling. I didn't see a single instance of them attacking each other, although I was sure that without me wandering about their natural state would be to fight each other. There was an intelligence connecting them and controlling them, at least to a degree.

The only real challenges on the coast seemed to come from the ritual altars. There were three on the coast before the waypoint, each of them rather difficult. The altars seemed to both summon enemies for me to fight, and made them tougher.

The first ritual I came upon after dispatching a party of cannibals dining on an unfortunate fellow. Probably an exile that ended up on this side of Lioneye's Watch. It was apparently a good thing to end up on the Twilight Strand.

The altar itself was an ugly thing, probably built by the cannibals according to whatever magical or divine instructions they got. It was certainly unique enough that it wasn't likely they came up with it on their own.

As the base of the altar was a chest, contents of which were shrouded in some kind of mist. It probably held something that would be revealed after activating the altar. Completing some kind of challenge was probably required. With some trepidation I touched the altar and channeled some mana into it.

Immediately a ritual circle appeared around the altar, blocking my sight of the surroundings. Then enemies began to appear, both from underground and from outside the circle. Every kind of enemy I had seen on my way towards the Tidal Island were all coming after me. My zombies went to work, but it was all too much for them to handle alone.

I dodged and weaved between attacks, tried to keep out of the worst of the combat, and still had to use my flasks repeatedly. I was clubbed, bitten, shot, and clawed so many times I lost count. Without life flasks I would have died many times over.

My zombies took the brunt of the attack, obviously. They were far more menacing to my enemies than I, and I exploited the fact mercilessly. While my opponents were distracted, I rained fire on them. When my zombies fell, I raised new ones.

And then, just when I thought it was over, another wave appeared with a rare cannibal leading it. Like her normal counterparts, she threw rocks, but she also resisted fire, which made my fireballs almost useless against her. The first time she threw rocks at me I was surprised. Instead of a single rock, she threw three. The first I dodged, but the other two hit. Luckily one of my zombies distracted her while I drank from my life flasks. She managed to destroy the zombie before I got back to attacking her. My zombies dealt with the other monsters. Since my fireball was almost useless here, I just repeatedly blasted her with bolts from my wands. It had an effect but not much of one.

Eventually my zombies ran out of other enemies to attack and surprised her from behind. The expression on her face was priceless when one of my zombies simply slammed its fists to the backs of her legs, breaking them both. After that it was trivial for my zombies to deal with her, each making a similar slam attack on her prone body.

The ritual circle was full of bodies, viscera, and dismembered limbs. Even by my standards it was disturbing. Soon the remains were disappearing, melting away. Only the zombies I had raised from the bodies kept their form.

The next ritual went pretty much the same way, except the final rare didn't have as much elemental resistance and my fireballs and zombies brought him down much faster. I could already see perhaps two thirds of the items in the second altar chest, seeing the same items that I had seen on the first one. It seemed that the altar chests shared inventory.

Perhaps due to the lingering effect of the scrolls of wisdom, or through the magic of the altars themselves, I knew that I could get only some of the items the chests contained. I could also defer items with an expenditure of the same power that would allow me to remove items from the chests. I got the vague idea that there were more of these altars around the world, and that by deferring items I'd come across them later.

Nearing the island I came across people, probably more cannibals, spending time around a bonfire. One of the females was Fire Fury, a cannibal that was very fire-attuned. I doubted that my fireballs would work on her. To prepare for the encounter I equipped the _freezing pulse_ gem I had picked up earlier and had slotted into a backup weapon. Then we attacked.

My zombies dealt with the other cannibals, killing them fast. Not fast enough to prevent Fire Fury from targeting me with her _firestorm_ , a ranged attack that rained bolts of fire on my location. I didn't manage to avoid them all. I had smelled burning flesh before but it had rarely been mine.

My zombies that got close to her were being annihilated by her _flame surge_ , although they did manage to cause some damage. With that and my freezing pulses we were getting the upper hand. That's when she began to summon molten skeletons.

I had trouble raising zombies fast enough to protect me from the skeletons. This left me open to Fury's attacks. My flesh sizzled as her fires burned me. The agony was exquisite, and quite distracting. I almost dropped my wand when half of my fingers nearly burned off. The zombies got an occasional lucky hit in, giving me chances to repay the favor. The kills by zombies kept my flasks full while she was being frozen to death.

It was excruciating, but in the end I was victorious. Looting the bodies netted me several rares, although nothing too impressive. I hit the jackpot with Fire Fury, though. A gem to _summon raging spirits_. I knew just how to maximize their damage output. Or, to be exact, the damage output of the phantasms they were going to be summoning.

My inventory space was nearing full, so I used a portal scroll to get back to Lioneye's Watch. Inventory spaces were an interesting application of magic that didn't have anything to do with thaumaturgy. I had used weeks to investigate them and try to increase the capacity without any success. The magic was one of the rare examples of ancient Vaal magic that didn't use thaumaturgy in any capacity.

Regardless of the magics involved inventory spaces were very useful. Nearly every citizen of the Eternal Empire, and later, after its fall, Oriath, were branded with the symbols to create and manipulate the inventory space. The inventory allowed the people to carry far more than they would have been able otherwise, bags, backpacks or anything like that included.

To my surprise there were no _summon phantasm_ gems available for purchase in the settlement. It was far more common than _raise zombie_ gem, probably because people didn't really understand the power of phantasms. They were unsettling but not horrendous like zombies. I had to manage with the support gems I had found and managed to buy.

I went back to the coast and found the final altar quite close to the place where I had fought Fire Fury. My minions and I cleared the enemies guarding the altar and then I activated it. Waves of opponents began to appear, each wave progressively more difficult.

When I saw Fire Fury again I hoped she was part of the last wave. I didn't relish the idea of fighting her again, especially when the altar was enhancing my enemies, and she appeared to be just as deadly as she was before I killed her the first time.

This time I had an edge. Raging spirits and gems supporting them, and the zombies, were ripping through the normal enemies, allowing me to focus on Fire Fury. Then two rare enemies appeared from the darkness beyond the ritual circle, right behind her. With their support she got a second wind.

I was in for another beating. The regular and magical enemies were distracting my minions enough to allow the three more powerful opponents to fight me almost uninterrupted. Again I was burned, lacerated, pierced, bruised, and damaged in myriad of ways. Again my flasks kept me alive without doing anything for the pain. An oversight I fully intended to fix soon.

Then the wave ended, no more enemies appeared. The ones already within the circle were killed by my minions, and then they turned to the three left. Zombies and raging spirits with my freezing pulses took care of Fire Fury and her friends with ease that beggared belief.

I didn't like that I had survived on mere luck. The pains were going away with the injuries, but the sour-tasting memories would stay with me. I wiped blood off my face and turned to check the altar chest.

It seemed my luck was still with me. The last third of the items available with the tribute I had collected was revealed, and one of those was Tabula Rasa. It was one of the more common so-called unique robes. It wasn't special in any way except that it always came with six white linked skill gem slots.

The existence of magical items was somewhat a mystery considering the amount of magical items available around the world, and the fact I knew of very few experts like myself capable of creating them. Creating a magical item was a complicated and exhausting process, both in terms of time and resources. Even more so when the item to be created was thaumaturgical in nature.

There were ways to automate some of the process, in some cases almost all of it. One such process had been created for flasks. It had probably been recreated by every civilization since the Vaal, and I had heard some scholars claim that even the Vaal had based their process on something older.

My tribute was enough to get the Tabula Rasa but nothing else. I didn't really need much else. Six-linked robe, even one that was white and couldn't be colored or enhanced, was quite powerful. Well, you could try to modify the robe by corrupting it with a Vaal Orb but there was a chance that doing so would change the robe to something far less valuable.

After grabbing the robe, slotting gems into it, and putting it on I took a look around. The enemies summoned by the ritual had dissolved just like the previous ones had, but the stuff they dropped had stayed. One of the things left behind where Fire Fury had been was another _summon phantasm_ support gem. I slotted it in the wand with freezing pulse and fireball. The first _summon phantasm_ went in the robe with _raise zombies_ , _summon raging spirits_ , _minion damage_ , _lesser multiple projectiles_ and _melee splash_. I was finally getting closer to what I wanted, although I was afraid the final result was still quite far away.

From what I knew of the surrounding areas after talking with the other exiles, and those who had lived here for decades, the combination of skill gems, both active and support, would most likely be quite enough to see me deeper to the continent.

There was a waypoint only couple of hundred meters from the last ritual altar. It just happened to be in the crossroads to the mudflats and the shallows to the Tidal Island. After one more visit to Lioneye's Watch I was heading to the Island.


End file.
